Updated: Jun. 20, 2023 at 6:44 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
New lawsuit accused N.C. House Speaker of using power for sexual relationship.
Updated: Jun. 19, 2023 at 8:42 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The lawsuit claims woman feared ending relationship with House Speak Tim Moore would cause retaliation.
Updated: Apr. 12, 2023 at 2:39 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner, Brandon Hamilton and Nikki Hauser
An autopsy of Shanquella Robinson conducted in Charlotte found Robinson’s spine intact.
Updated: Apr. 6, 2023 at 5:59 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Representative Tricia Cotham is switching parties, moving from being a registered Democrat to a registered Republican. Cotham's decision to switch parties gives Republicans veto-proof majorities in both chambers, which all but guarantees legislation on critical issues, including new abortion restrictions, will become law this session.
Updated: Dec. 21, 2022 at 7:17 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
Two children were illegally taken from their school in the Rock Hill school district, six months apart. Both were recovered when their father was stopped by N.C. State Highway Patrol on Monday. Now their mom is speaking only with WBTV to question why the system that was supposed to safeguard her children failed not once but twice.
Updated: Nov. 3, 2022 at 1:42 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Democrat Jeff Jackson has pulled a campaign ad that focused on a house owned by his opponent, Pat Harrigan. The move comes weeks after police began investigating a bullet that was shot into a house owned by Harrigan’s parents.
Updated: Aug. 23, 2022 at 5:47 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals stopped a state criminal investigation into North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein on Tuesday. The ruling comes one day after a Wake County grand jury signed off on the first of a two-part process to seek charges against Stein.
Updated: Aug. 22, 2022 at 5:40 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is facing a possible indictment after a grand jury approved prosecutors moving forward with a criminal investigation.
Updated: Apr. 25, 2022 at 1:21 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The family of McCrae Dowless released a new statement Monday promising that more information will come out about allegations related to election fraud that has swirled for years, stemming from the 2018 election for the 9th Congressional District. Dowless died of cancer on Sunday.
Updated: Apr. 24, 2022 at 5:27 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner and WBTV Web Staff
The political operative at the center of the 9th Congressional District scandal in 2018, McCrae Dowless, has died after a battle with cancer, sources told WBTV.
Updated: Nov. 16, 2021 at 11:06 AM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
Dowless, the political operative at the center of the 9th Congressional District scandal in 2018, is currently supposed to report to federal prison on December 1.
Updated: Nov. 1, 2021 at 6:24 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
WBTV Investigates: School administrators at Hawthorne Academy High School accused the female student of filing a false report and suspended her
‘Slap in the face’: N.C. DPI employees saw raises, elevated pay as teachers wait for salary increase
Updated: Oct. 21, 2021 at 5:58 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
WBTV Investigates: The raises and inflated salaries at the state’s education office come as classroom teachers continue their years-long wait to see increase in pay
Updated: Sep. 30, 2021 at 6:17 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has cited a Charlotte nursing home after live maggots were found in the wound of a resident suffering from dementia.
Updated: Sep. 20, 2021 at 4:41 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The chairman of the N.C. ABC Commission resigned on Friday. His resignation comes as the state grapples with liquor shortages, sparked in part by supply chain issues but also a new state contract that has led to delayed and missing liquor shipments to local ABC boards across the state.
Updated: Sep. 14, 2021 at 8:01 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The N.C. Office of the State Treasurer says its office has had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of checks flagged as suspicious that were written as part of the HOPE program, intended to help pay people's rent to keep them in their homes.
Updated: Jul. 8, 2021 at 10:42 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation is investigating a former lieutenant with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office in connection with a drive-by shooting that happened in May, an agency spokeswoman confirmed to WBTV.
Updated: Jun. 21, 2021 at 1:20 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
McCrae Dowless, the political operative at the center of the 9th Congressional District scandal in 2018, pleaded guilty to two charges related to unemployment fraud in federal court on Monday.
Updated: Jun. 10, 2021 at 12:28 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
A top regulator at the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services defended the agency’s sporadic inspection of a camp that advertises itself as offering wilderness therapy in western North Carolina after a WBTV investigation.
Updated: May. 24, 2021 at 11:04 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Trails Carolina, a wilderness therapy camp in the mountains of North Carolina, advertises itself as a place to help children. But interviews with former participants, staff and parents who have sent their children to the camp suggest it may do the opposite.
Updated: Apr. 19, 2021 at 4:01 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Lawmakers, including House Speaker Tim Moore, pushed legislation to change the tax rules related to PPP loans without disclosing that their businesses accepted PPP loans.
Updated: Apr. 1, 2021 at 9:38 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Public records obtained by WBTV are raising questions about how a small nonprofit spent $3.5 million in federal CARES Act money. An expert calls it 'highly unusual'.
Updated: Mar. 23, 2021 at 2:38 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The North Carolina office in charge of administering a program designed to help people impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic catch up on rent and utility bills is changing how it handles cases, as more than $60 million meant to help people sits unspent.
Updated: Mar. 9, 2021 at 11:24 AM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
An employee at Kids R Kids of Huntersville was arrested last June after video showed a three-year-old being assaulted. The boy's parents say the incident should be a warning to other parents that abuse can happen no matter how highly-rated the facility is.
Updated: Mar. 3, 2021 at 5:39 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
The N.C. Department of Justice has stonewalled efforts to review decades of files where the state crime lab used bad science to send innocent men to prison. That changed after questions from WBTV.
Updated: Feb. 8, 2021 at 12:17 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
The N.C. HOPE Grant program has only spent $42 million of $160 million set aside to help people pay their rent and utility bills. State officials have approved a total of $120 million in grant awards but cannot explain why it's taking so long to get checks cut.
Updated: Jan. 21, 2021 at 11:32 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
This stems from an incident on Dec. 19 2019 when Atrium security guards tackled 16-year-old Hayden Long to the ground, tazed him and sat on him.
Updated: Jan. 21, 2021 at 11:32 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
A commander with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol wants his troopers to write more speeding tickets.
Updated: Jan. 14, 2021 at 5:41 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
The North Carolina State Highway Patrol has placed troopers on standby in preparation for possible unrest at the state capitol, sources tell WBTV.
Updated: Dec. 17, 2020 at 1:48 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
Governor Roy Cooper issued a pardon of innocence to five men on Thursday, each of whom had been convicted of crimes they did not commit.
Updated: Nov. 25, 2020 at 2:44 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
Three state prisons have been closed, with hundreds of inmates being transferred to other facilities across the state, as COVID-19 continues to spike within the prison system.
Updated: Nov. 17, 2020 at 2:22 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner and NC Watchdog Reporting Network
Thousands of North Carolinians have been forced from their homes this year, despite a pair of orders from the Governor banning evictions Leegraciea Lewis, who was forced from her apartment and is now living in an extended stay hotel, is one of them.
Updated: Nov. 12, 2020 at 7:26 PM EST
|By Nick Ochsner
Video obtained by WBTV shows the husband of a candidate for local office in Anson County repeatedly escorting voters into cast their ballot. The video surfaced after county elections officials denied any existed for more than two weeks and after some video was deleted.
Updated: Oct. 23, 2020 at 6:22 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
A man was arrested in Kannapolis with a van full of guns and explosives with plans to carry out an act of terrorism, including trying to assassinate Joe Biden.
Updated: Oct. 15, 2020 at 11:57 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has refused to meet with or take any action to pardon four men who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. As a result, those men cannot get any compensation from the state.
Updated: Oct. 7, 2020 at 9:22 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
US Senate Candidate Cal Cunningham is under investigation by the US Army Reserve following revelations he had an extramarital affair, according to a spokesman for the US Army Reserve.
Updated: Oct. 6, 2020 at 12:23 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The North Carolina Republican Party filed a new lawsuit on Monday seeking to force the North Carolina State Board of Elections to provide access to absentee ballot envelopes, which are public records under the law.
Updated: Sep. 25, 2020 at 10:21 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The North Carolina State Board of Elections has released meeting minutes and a legal memo related to a vote it took in closed session last week.
Updated: Sep. 24, 2020 at 4:15 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner and Emily Featherston
The resignation of the two Republican members of the North Carolina State Board of Elections late Wednesday night has raised new questions about a vote, taken by the board in a closed session, that would ease some legal requirements pertaining to absentee by mail ballots.
Updated: Sep. 10, 2020 at 3:52 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
North Carolina Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Mandy Cohen has denied a request for colleges across North Carolina to allow families of football players to attend games in-person.
Updated: Aug. 27, 2020 at 12:52 AM EDT
|By WBTV Web Staff and Nick Ochsner
CMPD is expected to publicly release video Wednesday of the incident, which happened on 4th Street during protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Min.
Updated: Aug. 20, 2020 at 3:57 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
House Rules Chairman David Lewis (R-Harnett) has been charged with federal crimes. He resigned his office this afternoon, shortly before the charges were filed.
Updated: Jul. 21, 2020 at 6:54 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The December assault of a 16-year-old boy outside of an emergency room in Lincoln County is under investigation by the FBI and US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina.
Updated: Jul. 10, 2020 at 1:50 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The North Carolina prison system does not have a schedule to test all of its inmates for COVID-19, despite repeated claims it will complete the testing by mid-August, which came after a judge ordered mass testing.
Updated: Jun. 30, 2020 at 10:57 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Days after the North Carolina legislature’s passage of a bill that includes a measure to further restrict death investigation records from public access, some lawmakers say they plan to walk back the provision.
Updated: Jun. 27, 2020 at 1:56 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
While North Carolinians were sleeping early Friday morning, the General Assembly swiftly passed a bill that would shield death-investigation records from the public. The bill was requested by N.C. Department of Health and Human Services and passed unanimously by lawmakers.
Updated: Jun. 18, 2020 at 12:05 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
NC prison officials transferred more than 1,000 inmates between various prisons in April and May, at a time when they said inmate movement had been largely restricted. Experts say each inmate movement increased the risk of spreading the virus.
Updated: Jun. 9, 2020 at 11:37 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
Officials with the White House Coronavirus Task Force are concerned with North Carolina’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically the state’s inability to quickly marshal testing resources, multiple people familiar with the matter say.
Updated: May. 29, 2020 at 11:44 AM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
The North Carolina Department of Public Safety is asking law enforcement officers from other state agencies whether they would be willing to work at state prisons in the event the agency has a major shortage of correctional officers due to COVID-19, according to documents obtained by WBTV.
Updated: May. 18, 2020 at 5:43 PM EDT
|By Nick Ochsner
NCDOT will require all employees to take furlough time off between now and the end of June, as the department continues to grapple with budget issues stemming from before the coronavirus pandemic.